


Dream Within a Dream

by nightofdean



Series: When You Dream, Do You Dream of Me? [2]
Category: Almost Human
Genre: Androids, DRN - Freeform, Dreams, Philosophy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-27
Updated: 2014-01-27
Packaged: 2018-01-10 05:15:53
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 437
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1155532
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nightofdean/pseuds/nightofdean
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Do androids dream of electric sheep?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dream Within a Dream

_Dreams seem to help us process emotions by encoding and constructing memories of them. What we see and experience in our dreams might not necessarily be real, but the emotions attached to these experiences certainly are. Our dream stories essentially try to strip the emotion out of a certain experience by creating a memory of it. This way, the emotion itself is no longer active.  This mechanism fulfils an important role because when we don’t process our emotions, especially negative ones, this increases personal worry and anxiety. In fact, severe REM sleep-deprivation is increasingly correlated to the development of mental disorders. In short, dreams help regulate traffic on that fragile bridge which connects our experiences with our emotions and memories. –_ The Science Behind Dreaming by Sarah van der Linden (via [Scientific American](http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-science-behind-dreaming/))

Humans when overworked for long periods of time always have the assurance of sleep at the end of the day. A dark mindscape where the overwhelming pressures of society do not exist, in the deep stages of REM sleep only you and the shaky reality of unconsciousness exist.

But, what if you couldn’t dream, what if sleep came and went and all that existed was emptiness. No emotional dump, no fantasy world to escape to. What if all that existed was limbo, darkness and swirling thoughts.

A terrible existence, but one not meant for Dorian as he dreams. His designers had foreseen the possible outcomes of DRN’s not being able to dream and quickly added the Subconscious Dreaming Subroutine.

The emotional dump is a relief for Dorian with the constant work of acting like robotic discrimination doesn’t bother him and giving the proper human responses to ease John’s sensitive psyche, because he was ‘one of the crazy ones’.

It really didn’t require that much energy, but being allowed to be himself once and awhile would be nice. Dorian knew of course that John was already close to a steep cliff, not wanting push any buttons. Dorian knew when to step back, but he wasn’t acting for John, not really.

He really did like him and teasing him mercilessly was just endless fun. And he hoped the fun never ended. It was like a dream, and that was what scared him.

Because DRN’s dreamed vividly, so vivid in fact that it was almost real. What if this life, what if John Kennex was fictional, a fantasy and he’d already been shipped to NASA.

It was an absurd thought. But it haunted him daily.

What if he woke up one day to find himself in a nightmare?

Perhaps dream sequencing wasn’t such a good idea after all.

 

 

 


End file.
